The 11 top U.S. companies targeted by China

A U.S. flag is tweaked ahead of a news conference between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016.(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP)

The pace of Chinese buying of U.S. companies is unprecedented, Peterson says. The value of Chinese bids for U.S. companies just this year is roughly four times the $9.4 billion of Sino-U.S. deals announced last year and already well above the previous record of $11.8 billion Chinese companies announced spending in 2013. 2013 was the year China's Henan Shineway Industry Group agreed to buy food processor Smithfield Foods for $7.3 billion.

Chinese buys of U.S.-based companies is hitting a record.(Photo: S&P Global Market Intelligence, data as of March 7, 2016.)

"The deal flow is self-explanatory," Peterson says. "It will be a record year for Chinese acquisitions of companies based in the U.S."

China's shopping spree in the U.S. is starting to get harder to ignore given some of the high-profile targets. Five of the six largest Chinese buyouts of U.S. companies have all occurred this year, Peterson says. Ingram Micro, a U.S.-based company that distributes electronics made by companies ranging from Apple (AAPL) to Microsoft (MSFT) was bought in February by China's Tianjin Tianhai for $7.3 billion - making it the third largest China offer for a U.S. company after Starwood and Smithfield.

Then there was China's Qingdao Haier's $5.4 billion buy of General Electric's (GE) GE Appliances unit in January.

Chinese buying is getting to levels that investors can't write off as just a blip, Peterson says. The dollar value of Chinese buyouts account for about a third of the total spent by all foreign buyers. "This could be a topic for the elections," he says.